Garmin - I'm confused

[ianj37]

Again I need help!

At the moment I have a Satmap Active 10 but as the price seems really good I've decided to give the Garmin 62s (which comes with a 'free' 1:50k GB OS map on a card) a try on the basis that if I don't like it more than the Satmap then I won't loose an incredible amount disposing of it via ebay. So far so good!

Now I also want a 1:25k map of the Peak District and this is where the confusion sets in; having read the comments on this forum about Garmin customer service I'm hoping that you can help rather than me trying to get an answer from them!

On their web site under 'National Parks 1:25k' Garmin sell a 'GB Discoverer - Peak District' map (Part Number: 010-D0188-00) for £59.99 which contains 'digital topographic OS Explorer Map as detailed as 1:25,000 scale and 1:50,000 scale Landranger maps from Ordnance Survey of Great Britain' and I don't understand what that means. The Peak District map I have in my Satmap automatically switches between 1:50k and 1:25k as I zoom in and out - is this what Garmin are describing but not very eloquently? Or perhaps I'm just being a little stupid.

To complicate matters further Garmin also have on their web site a product called Garmin 'Birdseye Select'. This is different from Birdseye Satellite Imagery which is 'simply' (how rapidly technology ceases to amaze!) just sat pictures of the ground. Anyway back to 'Birdseye Select' -  for £19.99 this will allow me 'to choose up to 1500 sq km of coverage throughout Great Britain. Whether you're heading off on holiday or embarking upon a series of expeditions, you can define the data you need for your exact destinations and navigate with Ordnance Survey raster mapping to a scale of 1:25,000.'

The bits of the Peak District that I want (mainly Bleaklow and Kinder) don't come to anything like 1500sq km so, Garmin users, am I loosing any detail, or anything else, by using Birdseye Select and saving £40 rather than the Discoverer map card?

Thanks for your help

Ian

[boogyman]

Hi Ian, although I am not familiar with Garmin's 62 series, I would be surprised if zooming in/out would make the device switch between different mapsets. None of the Garmins that I have used do that. On the other hand, the Garmin devices do the following:
- they allow you to set the level of (map) detail that you want to see
- they allow you to select which maps you want to see/hide

As for the maps that you consider, have you checked the OSM? I must say that the Belgian topomap from OSM is pretty good -- in some areas it is better than the 1:50k topomap from Garmin. I have not tried any OSM for the UK though. If you want to give it a try, you can find them here:
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Download#Europe

Best,
Chris.

[John-C]

I fell for the marketing & regret getting the card based 1:50K.....  one thing that is not clear is that the card supplied version is locked to the card, whereas the downloaded is locked to the device.  whilst this gives the option to move cards around between devices, its rather restrictive otherwise.  (& I certainly don't want to write to the card)

I played around a lot to get the zoom to work but gave up.  What I have now is 1:25k downloaded to the internal memory & 1:50 k card as a separately selectable set of images.

...I'd much prefer the whole lot to be downloaded to the same card even though the image quality might be lower (its still reasonable at 4x scale).

customer service doesn't care one bit.  I even tried to trade in the card at a loss on the price difference based on the cheapest bundle (totally fair considering it wasn't clear in the blurb/website etc. their lack of statement being their defence!) and their answer was a blank - no way, tough.  if you want 1:50k downloaded, you need to buy it outright again (perhaps sell the card to some other mug?)......I feel myself winding up even now as I type.

[Callum]

I am sorry John but you shouldn’t use the word Customer Service with Garmin, as this department used to be part of a covert CIA disinformation unit. I tired exactly the same thing, calling them and found that they were obstructive to the point of being rude. Having failed with my reasonable approach, I trawled the net for a crack to their cards and found one, this solved my problem. Other customers may consider doing this too

[John-C]

Sorry Callum, I didn't have time (or sufficiently derogatory vocabulary) to use a more appropriate description. However, I hadn't realised they had improved that much since I had my battle with them - disinformation sounds like a few steps up from uninterested.

Unfortunately, grateful as I am for all their assistance, for some reason I didn't take up their very generous offer to allow me to download the 1:50K version at the special full price of c.£200, provided that I'd accept no refund whatsoever on return of the card purchased in error (if indeed it was in error & not just my wilful disregard to the unstated details warning me of the mode of protection used) .

Needless to say after such superb consideration for customer relations, I would not condone use of anything that might mean I could obtain the functionality I'm looking for, and also enable an effective backup in the process, However, I feel it is my duty to confirm if this is indeed possible .

....Callum, can you mail me the details please

[ianj37]

Many thanks to all of you for all your advice. I've now got the device so I understand a little more what I'm talking about. I spend quite a bit of time looking at questions asked about Garmin GPS on all sorts of forums so in the off chance someone comes across my post this is a summary of what I've found so far:

John - C and Boogyman are absolutely correct the 62s does not allow you to zoom in over different maps, other than the base map only one map can be active at a time (but it's easy to activate and deactivate - at home that is, whether it is as easy in adverse conditions is another question)

I tried the 'free' maps and they look good but at the moment I want my GPS map to look like my paper map so sadly they're not for me but 10/10 to the people who produce them.

I have invested in a Birdseye Selection map. £18 for 1400 sq.m and so far I've made a 1:25k map of the Dark Peak and it has used about half of the   1400 sq. m. The file is small - it only takes up 64MB of the 1.4 gb user memory available. The map seems to be associated directly with the device and is stored on the PC so apparently can be exported to the device many times. I guess the theory is that the core maps are on card and these Birdseye ones are moved in and out as required when connected to the PC. The problem is that what I've downloaded 's not based on the the most up to date OS data so changes made to the OL 1 (Peak District - Dark Peak) map in 2011 aren't shown. I've emailed Garmin and asked about that.

The all GB 1:50k OS map comes on a 4GB card and uses 3.68 GB.

A  route with 97 'vias' uses 19kb of storage and a single waypoint with a bit of text added uses 2kb.

GPX files from SatMap's Xpedition planner can't be imported directly in to BaseCamp (Garmin's planner) you have to use SatMap's Satsync to convert from .gpx to .map and then back to .gpx then  it works great, but why?

Ian

[ianj37]

As I said in my previous reply the Garmin Birdseye Select map covering the Peak District (Dark Peak) is out of date and I emailed Garmin Customer Support with two questions:

1) Whether Garmin would be making the changes to the Birdseye map in the near future and 2) if I the Garmin Discoverer map of the Peak District (Part Number: 010-C0980-00 - a mere £59) is based on the OS 2011 map.

Their reply is now back:

1) At this time we do not have information on if a update will or will not be released
2) They didn't bother to answer the question which I guess translates into can't be bothered to find out!

So now I totally understand Callum's rating of Garmin Customer Services!

Curiously I had reason to raise the same question about the 2011 update to the OS Dark Peak map with SatMap Customer Services 2 years ago  just after OS had released the changes as I had just bought the Peak District map from them and it didn't reflect the changes. The response couldn't have been more different - they checked it all out found that OS had just sent them an update and then sent me an updated map. There is a clear message in this!

Ian   

[captain paranoia]

> 2) They didn't bother to answer the question which I guess translates into can't be bothered to find out!

That is SOP for support lines the world over; they never answer more than one question at a time...

So you have to submit a query for every question you have...

[ianj37]

Good point Captain - so I've asked the unanswered question again and we'll see what comes back this time!

Ian

[ianj37]

Just to close this down, and to prove the Captain right, the reply to the second question to Garmin (whether their Discoverer Peak District map includes the updates OS made in 2011) is now back:

"We do not have information as to what map update it is running."   

So that was well worth waiting for!